Computer systems are routinely modified, either through maintenance, upgrade, addition or deletion. A change request is a request to add, remove or modify one or more items in the organization's information technology (IT) structure, e.g., replace a hard drive in a server, upgrade the version of a specific software application or install a new software application.
Change request implementations generally have some impact on the stability of the organization's IT. Thus, change implementation can often cause part of the system to malfunction. IT organizations typically try to minimize the impact of the change request implementation by reviewing the change request and approving it only after they understand its impact and risk. There are several areas where review boards can reduce the risk, but due to large number of change requests being reviewed, these review boards are often not capable of effectively reducing the risk and generally they only understand the potential impact of the change request. As a result, change requests are often implemented outside their optimal conditions and the damage to the organization is higher than one might expect.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons that will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for alternative methods and apparatus for implementing change requests in computer systems.